The door, the windows, backdoors—and as we know, in some cases, even the chimney.

And yet most of us gingerly avoid the chimney, heading straight for the door instead

Once we’re in the door, we don’t run madly through all the rooms of the house, but instead hang around in the lounge, finally sinking on a sofa.

This is approximately the route that most clients take when they look at your product or service. They get in through your door, sink into some content/products and finally are keen to explore the rest of the site. This is also why creating a niche for your business makes perfect sense. A niche provides a small, single entry to your business, but the moment the client steps through, and likes what they see, they want to explore everything else as well.

And while there are many ways to get a product going, the often overlooked route is the product-based niche.

So what is a product-based niche?

It’s exactly as it sounds. It’s the one thing that’s going to attract a serious number of customers. Take for instance, the Louvre in Paris. You know what their big product is, right? Sí it’s the Mona Lisa. All those 30,000 pieces of art that are hanging around the place, well, they’re nice. Some of them are even big and mighty, but it’s the Mona we’re all rushing madly towards.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, doesn’t depend on the itty-bitty painting. The “Nightwatch” is so massive that it was rumoured to have been cut (yes, cut) to fit in the town hall many years ago. And so both museums drive their audience by focusing on a single product.

If you have an information-based business, you can use the same concept

You create a niche of a niche, not just to get customers, but also strategic alliances to your business.

Let’s start with customers, though. Let’s say you’re a photographer. Well, that’s a nice service to have, but is it getting you customers by the truckload? So let’s say you write a book that’s kinda specific.

Maybe, just a book on ‘how to shoot perfect photos in low light conditions’. Now you’ve gone into a bit of a niche product, haven’t you? Other books on photography cover tons of stuff. Clients wanting to learn how to take better photos are inundated with every topic under the sun when they read photography books. Suddenly you’ve separated yourself from the herd. The customer comes in, wanting to learn how to “take low light photos” and then is exposed to all your other products as well.

And it’s helpful for strategic alliance acquisition too…

If you’re a photographer and I’m a photographer, and we’re both in the same business, it’s likely that I may not send business to you, my competition. But if you’re dealing with a sub-set of the business e.g. low light, then I in turn can find something that I’m a bit of an expert at. Suddenly there’s a ton of stuff that’s niche. You don’t believe me? Here’s a list:

- Extending Dynamic Range with HDR & Other Techniques

- Understanding off-camera flash

- Before & After Images for Adobe Lightroom Presets

- TimeLapse Photography

- Exposure for Outdoor Photography

- Chasing Reflections

And yes, it’s even possible that someone has written the book on exposure

So go deeper! Write about some sub-set of exposure instead. Someone has written about time-lapse photography, write something that is a sub-set of that topic. At Psychotactics, we use this concept of sub-sets a lot—yes, even with our own products. So The Brain Audit has been the flagship product explaining systematically “Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don’t).

And yet, there are sub-sets of The Brain Audit itself.NThe Brain Audit talks about seven “red bags” that have to be taken off to get the customer to buy your product or service. Those “bags” are the problem, the solution, the target profile, objections, risk reversal, testimonials and uniqueness. And those “red bags” are explained in reasonable detail in about 160 pages of the book. But there are sub-sets of the book.

Here’s a list:

- A 100+ page book on “The Secret Life of Testimonials”

- A Three Day Course on Uniqueness called “Pick One”

- A report on target profile.

- A mini-course on how to “Pick the Right Problem”.

As you can see you can create niches by the dozen, if you choose

The niche is what attracts a client. When everyone else is trying so desperately to fit everything in their book/reports/courses, you create a tiny little sunshine spot of your own, which attracts both customers and alliances.

And once your customers are comfortable they explore more stuff.

You don’t have to keep all your windows and backdoor open. Give customers a doorway that’s interesting and evocative and you’ll see customers responding better than ever before.

How long does it take for you to know if someone is a good teacher or not?

Nalini Ambady, a psychologist, didn’t have that answer.

So she set out to do an experiment

She asked students to rate their teachers after spending a whole semester with them. But then the experiment got a bit weird. She decided to test (a different set of students) and give them less time to decide.

So how much time is “less time?” Is it a day, a week, a month?

Nalini decided on 30 seconds

So here’s what she did. She gave a batch of students three ten-second video tapes to watch. In those ten-second clips, you could see the teacher but couldn’t hear the voice or any other sound. And yet, when the test scores were in, she found something remarkable. The students who had barely 30 seconds, were able to judge the effectiveness of the teacher just as well as those who’d spent the entire semester with that teacher.

But the craziness of the experiment doesn’t stop there

Nalini Ambady decided to cut back the time to five seconds. The ratings were the same.

Then two seconds. The ratings were exactly the same.

You see how this affects your website, right?

You don’t? Well, the moment a prospect shows up at your website, they are scanning in about two seconds. And if you have your own, authentic voice to what you display, that’s the information the prospect is drinking in. In mere seconds, they’re already deciding if they like you or not. And of course, they’re paying attention to the visuals, the words, the video—pretty much everything as they take a snapshot of you.

And yet, we feel trapped when creating our websites

Often the headlines we write are terrible and don’t reflect us. We go to some crummy Internet-guru website and copy headlines like “Who else wants to…..”. And the moment we do that yucky copying, we’re replicating that scammy Internet-guru website, not putting our own voice instead.

And of course it doesn’t stop there. We may depend on website designers, copywriters, article writers etc. to put together the elements of our website. And the website becomes a big mash up of a dozen personalities, but not our own.

Which is the reality of the day—something that’s not easy to fix

So you control what you can fix. You can fix videos. You can fix audio. You can fix your tone of voice in your articles. You can fix the tone of voice in your salesletters. You can indeed fix your testimonials by getting well-structured testimonials from your best clients.

You can do all of this, and though it takes a little effort, it’s effort well-worth taking. Because even as a client comes to your website and reads the words, they need to reflect you (or your customer on the sales page). And learning how to put those words together and have your own voice, is critical. They read headlines written by you, they see videos that reflect you. And they come to a decision.

Instead what you see online is this cut and paste syndrome

You find website after website that has a formula, and a look. And the owners of the website thinks the formula works. Yes, it does. If the formula was written by a scummy, get-rich quick merchant, it works for them.

But it won’t necessarily work for you. And therefore you need to start fixing things on your website.

Start with testimonials, because that’s the easiest

You already have clients. You already have one or two great clients. Well, get them to give you a testimonial that’s well-structured. And you’ll notice that the testimonial reflects who you are, and what you do in an authentic way.

If you have a video of that testimonial, that’s even better. Yes, you can indeed do a lot more stuff, but start with the easiest and one of the most effective ones to begin with—the testimonial.

Your potential clients aren’t taking a semester to judge you

They’re looking at your headlines, your graphics, the look of your website, your language, your tone—all in a matter of seconds. And there are things you can control, right now, right away. So get cracking.

A while ago, women across the planet started to do something quite unusual. Right after they tidied their homes to their satisfaction, they would remove this spray and give it a few squirts around the house. The name of that spray was (and is) Febreze.

Today, Febreze is a multibillion dollar brand. But it almost didn’t make it to market

It almost crashed and burned before it saw the light of day. And the reason had nothing to do with the product. Instead it had everything to do with the marketing—in particular, the target profile.

It was the year 1993. And one of the chemists at Procter & Gamble (P&G) had been working with a substance called hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin. And this chemist smoked a lot, and hence his clothes smelled kinda yucky. But one day, when the chemist’s wife greeted him at the door, she was puzzled. She was under the impression that he’d quit smoking, because his clothes smelled so fresh, so unlike the stale cigarette odour she’d anticipated. The chemist was curious. Perhaps it was the substance he’d been working on.

As chemists do, the chemist went back to his lab

And he worked on the product, improving it, playing with it. And finding to his amazement that when he put the hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin in water and sprayed it, the scents of a lot of yucky stuff were drawn into the molecules.

And once the mist dried, the odour disappeared with it. So now P&G had the potential for a multibillion-dollar product on their hands. They even had a name—they called it Febreze.

All they needed was a target profile.

And there she was–this park ranger in Phoenix, Arizona

The park ranger often dealt with animals. All kinds of animals. But skunks did figure quite prominently. And she was having a hard time getting rid of all the smell. Her home, her sofa, her clothes—it all smelled kinda ‘skunky’.

It’s not like she hadn’t tried to get rid of the smell. But nothing worked. And it was affecting her, because she always felt that her dates were judging her. And her love life (and confidence) were going down the drain. Then along came Febreze to the rescue. She sprayed it on her curtains, rug, uniform—pretty much everywhere she could think of. And the odour was gone. It was a miracle.

And that miracle should have turned itself into a monster-selling product

But it didn’t. Apparently she was the wrong target profile. Even though P&G marketed Febreze as a product that would get rid of the smells, women weren’t buying. Women weren’t even using the product even when samples were handed out. The problem lay in our brains.

Have you ever put on a perfume and then can’t smell it any more after a couple of hours?

Well, in the fragrance industry, that’s called the fatigue factor. And the customers who most needed the product couldn’t smell any foul odours at all. Hence Febreze didn’t get much traction. No one, it seemed was using the product at all. The target profile was wrong, and the entire marketing team were down a blind alley with not many solutions.

Ironically, another target profile came to their rescue

P&G found another woman in Scottsdale, Arizona who confessed to using Febreze every day. What was puzzling was that her home wasn’t particularly smelly. It was devoid of pets; no one smoked; there were no skunks around. But she didn’t use Febreze for specific smells.

She used it as a final touch.

After she cleaned the house, she took the Febreze and gently gave it a few sprays. She called it a mini-celebration. The problem that Febreze was solving wasn’t bad odours. Instead it was being used as a final touch after the room was tidy—almost like the frosting on the cake.

So yes, the target profile can go off target

And this is our fear. That if we choose the wrong target profile, we’ll be doomed forever. And yet, we only think this way when it comes to a sales letter. If we’re out eating ice-cream, and we’re presented with a new flavour, we don’t feel we have to pick right, or we’re doomed.

When we went on our first date, we didn’t exactly have this notion that we’d hit it off so well that we’d be together with that person forever. We normally expect that we may get lucky and pick the flavour of ice-cream and date of our dreams. But we’re nonchalant if we don’t.

P&G wasn’t nonchalant

Febreze turned out to be a monster hit, and continues to be a top player in the market today. And despite doing their research with probably hundreds of women, eventually even a massive company like P&G, found that target profile worked best. And that if the target profile didn’t work at first, they would try again. And so they did.

And so should you…

The odds weren’t in P&G’s favour. They had a product that never existed in that shape or form before. You don’t have that problem for the most part. If you’re a consultant, or a product creator, there are probably dozens of products similar to yours already in the marketplace.

You don’t have to educate your public that much. You just have to find someone who will speak to you, give you the entire sequence of the problem, solution, roller coaster etc. And your first pick may well turn out to be just fine.

But if it doesn’t work, don’t give up yet

A sales page may not work for many reasons. And before you reject the target profile in favour of another, do a little research with at least a few more people and see if the problem/solution etc. resonates with them. If it does, then there might be something else wrong with your sales sequence. And it’s worth investigating.

But if the audience doesn’t get all excited about the problem/solution it’s time to get right back to that drawing board. Get another client. Do another target profile interview. It sure is worth the trouble—as P&G found out.

The Brain Audit—Read what Howie Jacobson, author of “Adwords for Dummies”, has to say:

“The Brain Audit turns a century of brain research and market testing into 7 vivid and clear steps that anyone can use to make their own marketing more compelling”

I first stumbled upon the author, Sean D’Souza, at a conference where we both were speaking. I listening to his presentation on Saturday morning, and then locked myself in my hotel room for 16 hours straight while I rewrote my presentation on Google AdWords For Dummies to make it more like Sean’s.

Why? Principally because Sean understands and conveys underlying structure better than anyone else I know. He loves showing people the simple steps that make all the difference, so we can ignore the fluff and the BS. The result is always entertaining, frequently hilarious, and to any business that wants to attract and serve more customers and clients, incredibly valuable.

The Brain Audit turns a century of brain research and market testing into 7 vivid and clear steps that anyone can use to make their own marketing more compelling. And the best thing is, none of this is obvious. You never walk away from Sean’s brain with the feeling of, “Oh yeah, I knew that.” His approach and insight bring tired old marketing concepts like “USP” and “positioning” and “differentiators” to life in new forms.

Ever been to a buffet?
You know how you start off with the spring rolls, then it’s baked ham with pineapple sauce. Then it’s roast lamb with mint jelly and rich brown gravy. Top that up with roast seasoned pork loin with apple sauce and a little chicken with apricots and Camembert.

Do you get the feeling that you’re going to be sick if you keep at it?

Well, so does your customer when you stuff your uniqueness with features, more features and even more features.

And it’s not like you’re trying to make them feel sick

You’re just trying to be helpful. But in doing so, you’re totally confusing the customer and driving them to the competition.

So how do you get over this stuffing syndrome?

Introducing the Uniqueness Mastery (FREE) Course
In case you missed the announcement, for the last few weeks we have been giving away a lot of goodies absolutely free.

Goodie 1: Learn how to create your Uniqueness. Find out the biggest mistakes and how to avoid them.
Goodie 2: What Good Is Uniqueness If A Competitor Can Easily Copy It?
Goodie 3: Brand Positioning: Why The Right Uniqueness Is Built On A “DNA”
Goodie 4: Brand Positioning: Do You Need To Carve Out a UniquenessGoodie 5: Uniqueness: Why We End Up Feeling Stuffed

The biggest problem with most companies is that they are afraid of their uniqueness becoming obsolete. You have your uniqueness one day, and they it is gone. So how do you stop that from happening?
Let’s take an example

Let’s suppose you’re a teleconference company. And you say that your equipment is so darned good that a conference is like being in the ‘room next door’.

Now what does that mean?

Surely it means that your equipment is the latest and the greatest. But that can quickly become obsolete, right? It’s easy enough for other companies to do the same. And pretty darned soon everyone has the very same equipment. And boof, your uniqueness is shot to hell.

Oh no it isn’t! Not if your uniqueness is part of your DNA.

So how do we prevent our uniqueness from becoming obsolete? And what’s a DNA anyway?
Introducing the Uniqueness Mastery (FREE) Course

In case you missed the announcement, for the last three weeks we have been giving away a lot of goodies absolutely free.

Goodie 1: Learn how to create your Uniqueness. Find out the biggest mistakes

and how to avoid them.

Goodie 2: What Good Is Uniqueness If A Competitor Can Easily Copy It?

Goodie 3: Brand Positioning: Why The Right Uniqueness Is Built On A “DNA”

Have you heard about Domino’s Pizza?
What about FedEx?
And how about the uniqueness of Volvo?

So yeah, these companies found their uniqueness.
But what about you? Why can’t you find or create your own uniqueness?
Why does the uniqueness of your products and services play hide and seek with you?

And is there a way to end this hide and seek?
And more importantly, is it free?
Oooh yes it is!

So as promised here’s your uniqueness series that starts on Jan 10th (3pm Eastern). You get videos, articles, cartoons—and pretty much anything else I can think of.

And you get it absolutely free!
So where do you find all these goodies? And what’s the catch?
Find out more at: Free Uniqueness Goodies

You’ll just love what you see!

Warm regards from a psycho-summer (yup, that’s our summer so far).

Sean
P.S. Yes, you guessed right. There’s also a live workshop. And yes, you can read about the details when you fill in the form at the page above.

But I wasn’t alone.
On Jan 12, 2007, about a thousand and seven people passed by Joshua Bell.

You see Joshua was playing his violin–busking as it were–at the L’Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington D.C.

At this mornings rush hour, the crowd surged past him.

Some glanced in Josh’s direction; some slowed down their pace.

But most were just buried in their own thoughts and deadlines.

Seven actually stopped and listened for a minute or more.

And Joshua made $32 and some change for the 45-minute performance.

It’s just coincidental that Joshua Bell is one of the world’s most revered violinists on the planet today.

It’s also coincidental that not-so-good seats at his sold-out concerts sell at $100 a pop. And of course, that in Josh’s hand was a $3.5 million Stradivari violin.
So why would a world-class musician, who commands $1000 a minute get no r-e-s-p-e-c-t?

The answer lies in packaging.

If you head to the Louvre in Paris, you’ll inevitably end up at the painting of the Mona Lisa. You don’t need to have any skills to get to where the Mona Lisa sits.

Just follow the crowd, as they ignore spectacular works of art, in quest of the Mona Lisa.
And Joshua Bell is a ‘Mona Lisa’ with the right packaging.

Because Joshua sure gets r-e-s-p-e-c-t when he’s promoted as a world-class violinist. Crowds sit in hushed awe, even afraid to cough, as he plays the notoriously difficult piece ‘Chaconne’, that few violists ever master.

But even before Joshua plays a single note, the pre-show packaging is hard at work. The $3.5 million violin he holds in his hand is a show-stopper by itself.

Packaging is everything.

We’re told to focus on content, but hey Joshua had the content.

He was playing on the best possible instrument. In the best possible way. With surprisingly good acoustics.

But no one had told those one thousand and seven people at the metro, what to expect.

Imagine if they announced that there was a world-class violinist at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station.

Imagine if they said he was playing with a million-dollar violin.

Imagine if there were six armed guards around him to protect him. Now imagine the chaos, as people jostled to catch a view of Joshua and his wonderful violin.

Without the packaging, the Mona Lisa is just another painting. Without the packaging, Joshua is simply another busker. And without the packaging, your product or service ain’t worth a lot.
So how do you get customers to appreciate and consume your content?

1) Education.
2) The Presentation.
3) The Content itself.

So if you run a restaurant, and you served a delicious steak, the clients would need:

1) The Education: Where the steak comes from. What you do to prepare the steak. Which chef works on your steak. And how to spot the delicate flavours.
2) The presentation: The manner in which you present the product is critical. It must be a joy to simply see the steak.
3) The content itself: Yes, the steak must deliver. Otherwise there’s no point.

If you run a workshop or a presentation, your audience needs:

1) The Education: Where the clients understand why the methodology of training. Where they get specific reasoning why you’re bringing their attention to a specific piece of information.
2) The Presentation: Where specific props and methodology is used–and not just some boring Powerpoint presentation.
3 ) The content itself: Yup, tell them what you wanted to tell them.

And the customer is now appreciating your product/service like no customer has ever done before.

But appreciation is only a tiny part of the deal.

Consumption is the part that’s really important.

A Joshua Bell concert is consumed in its entirety, because of the packaging. The Mona Lisa is never missed, because of the packaging. Your product or service won’t stay half-consumed, because you’ve taken the trouble to package it.

And consumption is critical, because if the customer doesn’t consume the product/service, they’re unlikely to come back. They’re unlikely to become a repeat customer.

You can have the best content in the world, but if you don’t take steps to package your product, you risk the customer not understanding, and hence not using your product/service to the maximum.
Yes, ‘content is still king.’

But ‘packaging’ announces that the ‘king’ is arriving.

Because without the packaging, your wonderful content has the value of $32.

The uniqueness has to be invented. Here’s how you do it. You look at your business like you were a monarch surveying his kingdom.

And then make this big, warm wish for your royal subjects. If you could, what would you do differently?

Then do it. And once you’ve got the swing of things, announce your uniqueness to the world.

Ah, but hang in there a second…

Once you’ve decided what you want to do better than anyone else, survey the neighbourhood. Does any other competitor do the same? And does your competition stress their uniqueness?

If the answer to both those questions is No, then go right ahead and proclaim this uniqueness to your customers. It doesn’t matter if your competitor does the same thing. If you’re the first one to announce it, you own it.

Her proposition is simple. If you’re a real estate agent in Milwaukee, she won’t work with another real estate agent in Milwaukee. She’ll work with a real estate agent in New York — that’s ok. But she won’t have two real estate agents scrapping it out for top search engine rankings in one geographical area.

Now that makes Cindy different. Her customers know their privileged information stays privileged with Cindy. They realise the advantage of working with someone who has the integrity to pass up instant income for client secrecy. And they’re willing to pay more to get Cindy’s enhanced service.

Cindy’s onto a good thing with her self-created uniqueness.

Oh, oh hang on…Having a point of uniqueness isn’t enough

Once you do get your uniqueness going, you’ve gotta blah, blah, blah it to the rest of the world. Keeping it hidden on page six, paragraph seventy three, isn’t going to help you one little bit.

Most businesses know their uniqueness. They’ll even tell you their point of difference in a conversation. Yet, you won’t find it on the front page of their web site. It’s swept under the carpet in their brochures and newsletters. When they stand up to speak, they forget to make it an important part of the spiel.

If you look at the bottom of our newsletter, you’ll find the uniqueness. It says: A real newsletter – Not a disguised ad.

That’s what we decided to achieve. It’s our own invention. Get your uniqueness where it can be seen on a consistent basis. Not hidden under a bushel.
In Conclusion: You too can create your own uniqueness

If you’ve been frozen so far, un-freeze that cheesy slogan. Be who you want to be. You’re different. You know it. Now let the world know about your point of difference too.

Invent it!

Examples of Unique Selling Propositions(All invented by the way)

a) Subway – Subs with under 6 grams of fat.
b) Federal Express – When it Absolutely, Positively Has To Be There Overnight®
c) Dominos Pizza – 30 Minutes or it’s FREE!
d) Real Estate Agent- Specialises in Just 250 Homes in the Milford Area.
e) 9 Seconds.com – Search Engine Positioning without geographical conflict of interest.
f) Video Easy – Get it first, or get it free. (Note: They’re talking about getting videos when you walk into the store.)
g) Biz Tactics.com – Marketing Books you can read in 30 Minutes or less.
h) Hardware Store – Only 3% Markup on wholesale prices
i) Law Firm – House Conveyancing for a flat fee of $1000. No hidden costs.
j) Indian Restaurant – 100 Dishes to choose from if you don’t fancy butter chicken.
k) Herbal Smoke Away – Money back if you don’t give up smoking in just 7 days.

Not all women buy size 5 shoes. I mean why would they? Not everyone’s size is 5.

It’s probably 6. Or 4. Or 7. Or 17

And Size 5 shoes just don’t fit.

So even if she got the best discount…

The best quality; the best variety; the softest, most comfortable shoes ever. A sane woman still won’t consider buying the shoes for herself. And surely I don’t have to explain the reason why.

You’re not the right target audience

All the lah-dee-dah in the world won’t get a woman to wear those shoes. And frankly, all the lah-dee-dah on your marketing and sales, won’t get your target audience to buy your product.

In effect you’re wasting your time.

No matter, how much you try to get your target audience into a wrong size shoe, it just won’t work. You’ll think your marketing strategy is working. You’ll hope that it’s working, but hey, it’s time to wake up and smell the leather.

And focus on the right type of customer.

So how do you find the right type?

So far, when choosing a target audience, all you’ve been told to do, is pick the demographics. So what are demographics? Demographics are when you classify groups of people into clumps like, ‘Thirty something, female, two kids’ etc.

And then there are Psychographics

Psychographics are when you classify an audience by the problem that audience is facing. So what problem do women with size 5 feet have? You got it. They don’t quite get the variety when they look for shoes. They get fewer styles. They don’t get the right look. The list goes on and on and on.

So first identify the audience’s problem

Aha, we’re in a catch 22 situation, aren’t we? If we don’t have a somewhat clearer picture of our audience, how on earth are you going to understand what their problem really is? If all you’re going to do is open up a shoe shop and throw it open to every woman out there, then prepare to fight price-battles. Prepare to see downturns. Prepare for frustration and tension.

Or instead choose a target audience

Like Helen Wilcocks did. Her site at feetpetite.co.nz draws customers from all over New Zealand (and probably beyond). She’s based in Wellington, and every time she rolls into Auckland or some other city, I’d suggest you get out of the way as dozens of petite feet clamber to get great looking petite shoes.
And horrors, Feet Petite doesn’t even have a bricks and mortar store!

They’re strictly mail order. Or Internet order. Makes you think, doesn’t it? That a business with a specific target audience can cut through the clutter more effectively without little or no advertising, and strictly through word of mouth, simply because it targets a very specific target audience.

It’s that time again

Yes, to audit your message. To work towards a specific niche market instead of trying to get everyone and anyone to be your client. Carefully analyse your potential demographic. And the Psychographics. Then site down and rework your marketing strategy and message to suit a specific audience. Because not all women buy size 5 shoes. And certainly not everyone out there, is your target audience.

If you don’t believe me, try buying a woman a size 13 shoe for a size 5 foot.

In the year 2010, Apple Inc, released a product. “This product is doomed to fail”, said a lot of the experts. After all the type of product had been introduced time and time again, and had never ever succeeded. That product was a tablet device, which we now know as an iPad.
And yet the iPad sold 3 million devices in under 80 days
And by the end of the year, it was gloating with sales of almost 15 million devices (that’s more than all the other tablet PCs combined). So a rank “outsider product” beat all the doom and gloom to become the darling of the nanas, papas and tech-geeks worldwide.

Fair enough. But Apple is Apple. How can you create the same intensity when you’re just starting up a business or just launching a new product or service?

The key factor lies in creating credibility
No one wants to work with some dopey product or service. They want someone who knows what they’re doing. And yet when you’re starting up (either a new project or new business) there’s always a dopey feeling.

You know the portfolio part, don’t you?
If you’re going to sell anything, you need to be able to show and tell. And not be wimpy about your show and tell.

Have you ever seen how Apple sells their product?
They’re among the biggest, most well known brand in the world. And yet look at the trouble they take to describe their products in extreme detail. If you ever sashay across to an Apple product page, you could be reading about the benefits and features of a product well over two hours later.

They’re fanatical about their show and tell. And there’s a reason why.
When you show your portfolio, I need to feel your confidence
Sales is nothing but a transfer of confidence from one person to another. And when you explain minute details of a product/service, then I’m enthusiastic about your product and service.

But heck, what do most people do? They feel shy. Their mama told them not to boast. So instead of telling the product/service story in great detail, they get all coy and restrict the details to just a few lines.

Bad move!
When you go into detail, and often minute detail, you make the prospect salivate. They want to have the same experience, and so they read until they’ve read enough. Then they get in touch with you.

But portfolio isn’t always enough. Information is panting heavily behind.
So why is information so very critical?
Well let’s not forget you’re a bit green behind the ears. And being the new kid on the block means you may not have a track record or portfolio to show off. In which case, information—and this may be articles, video or audio—count a heck of a lot.

When a prospective client heads to your website, they’re checking you out in great detail. And this means they’re going to trundle across to your articles to take a little peek.

Of course they’re only going to take a peek, but two hours later they’re stuck. The information on your site is so darned compelling that they’ve lost track of time and are oohing and ahhing all over your insight.

And these doesn’t need to be an original insight…
In fact, it’s incredibly hard to write anything terribly original—and we all know that. But what’s captivating the prospective client is your tone and your perceptiveness. And hey, let’s not forget your enthusiasm.
Apple bounces around their website with enthusiasm—and information.
Don’t believe me—take a tour of the Apple site. And see how they have tons of very useful information. And if you’re in the mood to learn even more they have online seminars and training. When you empower the customer, they feel an uncontrollable urge to get to track you down so you can solve their problem. And this is because it’s so obvious (from the information itself) that you’re a pro at what you do.

So of course when they do call, or get in touch, you’ll need to have some rules.

Rules? Why do rules matter?
Rules are simply another show of confidence. Beginners bend over like crazy. It’s not hard to see why. When you’re launching a new product or service, the only focus is on making some money.

That’s the goal, the goal and the only goal. Ego doesn’t come in the way. You’re keen to do whatever you can, as long as you get the job—no matter what the conditions.

And yet conditions matter
You need to get paid. You need to do business on your terms. Because if you don’t do business on your terms, you’re just scrambling all over the place trying to please everyone.

And that won’t do at all. Having conditions not only show the prospective client that you’re a professional, but also radiates a sunburst of confidence.

And in case you’re wondering, Apple makes these rules all the time.
The iPad will fail, they said. You can’t have a device without a camera, they said. It won’t fit into your pocket, they said. It’s too expensive, they said. And no one really needs an iPad, they said. Apple went ahead and did what they thought was important anyway. They made their own rules. And as you know, they succeed wildly.

But can a product succeed without testimonials and proof?
Yes testimonials help, but new products and services don’t always have the luxury of testimonials. What they can do is give you solid information; give solid detail of the benefits of the product and service—and they can set rules.
The cynics will scoff, of course
They’ll tell you that products and services fail for a ton of reasons. And they’re not wrong. But you have no time for cynics. You need all the time you have to get your portfolio, your information and your rules going.

That way you can have the last laugh. Just as Apple does every day!
———————Next Step: “Before I purchased the Brain Audit, I thought this is just crazy, I’ve got so much marketing material that I still haven’t implemented.“

But right from Sean’s first story and metaphor, I could see this was different. I was hooked. The Brain Audit challenged virtually every principle of marketing I’d grown up with. Like selling benefit or never starting with a negative or problem.

And it’s this refreshing, innovative approach that makes the Brain Audit a must buy for anyone who is really serious about challenging the status quo and taking their business to new heights.

Already we’ve applied the principles to one of our workshops and the response has been fantastic. The Brain Audit and our ongoing association with Sean has been one of the best business decisions we’ve every made.

——————— “I actually didn’t join 5000bc a year earlier than I did assuming it would be a lot more expensive than it is. Silly me.”

I found it was far better than I ever imagined, over the years I have been a participant of many different memberships and forums and none of them come close to what 5000bc offers.

I would recommend 5000bc to any entrepreneur or small business owner as a great source of knowledge and information from like minded people who have often already achieved what you may be struggling to do and can help save you loads of time and ultimately expense in getting to where you need to be.

Duncan MacIntyre, officechairadvice, Derbys UK

5000bc now has a Waiting List. The waiting list joining time is approx. 30-45 days. So if you are serious about getting yourbusiness to the next level, get on the waiting list now.Judge for yourself http://www.psychotactics.com/5000bc

There are 380,000 pieces of art in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Of these, well over 35,000 pieces of art are for display at any given point in the gallery complex.

Yet, most of the tourists rush past 34,999 pieces of art to see a singular piece of art.

A painting that has a dimension of just 30 x 21 inches. A painting that’s often known as the La Gioconda.

Yes, the other name for La Gioconda, is the Mona Lisa

Has it ever occurred to you why every visitor seems to be in a mad rush to find the Mona Lisa? It’s not the world’s biggest painting.

It’s not the most breathtaking. In fact even three hundred and fifty years after it was first created, it was hardly considered an important, let alone the world’s most famous painting in the world.

So how did it become the world’s most famous artwork of all?

How did it go from a price of 4000 écus* to being valued as priceless?

And what does La Gioconda have to do with your product or service?

The answer lies in isolation

And isolation means that you put a spotlight on one product or service. That product or service gets the spotlight. You make sure that the customer knows that this product/service is the most critical of all. That without this product or service, the customer is probably missing out on something incredibly important.

But surely there can’t be one product or service that’s more important than all the others, you may object. And that’s true.

In fact, the Mona Lisa isn’t more important than all the 379,999 objects of art at the Louvre. It’s been made to be the most important.

And therefore the average tourist will pay the full fare to simply walk into the Louvre, see the Mona Lisa and go home.

So how do you go about isolating the most important product or service?

And more importantly how do you decide which ones to put to the side and which one in particular to highlight?

The answer is: Pick any product or service. And then create an aura around that product or service.

Let me give you an example with the Brain Audit.

Now at Psychotactics we have dozens of products and services (more products than services). But we picked the Brain Audit to be the show piece.

This means that at least 99% of all our current clients will have read the Brain Audit, and applied it in their business.

You can’t buy any course without the Brain Audit.

You can’t attend any workshop without the Brain Audit. You can’t get any consulting without having read the Brain Audit.

In fact, if you do buy any of our products or services, without the Brain Audit, then you’re kindly and firmly asked to read the concepts outlined in the Brain Audit.

And it’s not like clients haven’t tried to bypass this step. On at least two occasions, clients have paid thousands of dollars (one paid $8000 and the other $2500) and the money was refunded, because they didn’t own the Brain Audit.

By isolating the Brain Audit, we’ve made it the most important part of our business. Which means it forms the core document for all our clients. When they have to audit their own work, they go back to the Brain Audit.

But what if you don’t have a product?

What if you conducted workshops instead? Or what if you were in services?

Or what if you sold physical products?

Let’s take a quick example of each of the above.

1) Workshops: You can highlight one workshop as being the most crucial or critical of all. And within the workshop too, you can isolate certain components as being the most important, by simply giving additional weight to that portion of the learning.

In workshops or courses, we’ll often give the attendees all the information, and then spend most of our time working on just one portion of the entire content.

2) If you’re in services, and let’s say you help build houses for instance. You can easily highlight the most important part of the planning process, even though there are ten thousand things that need to be done in any building effort.

When a contractor did our bathroom for instance, he was quite clear about the dates he needed all the materials. This got us focused and we made sure we had everything ready and on time, so he could start work without delay.

3) You may run a restaurant and sell loads of delicious dishes. Yet it’s possible to highlight a specific dish. The Indian Restaurant ‘Two Fat Indians’ in Christchurch literally rates the dish most-ordered at the restaurant, thus bestowing a Mona-Lisa status on the dish itself.

And there are a few reasons why this isolation is important.

1) It allows customers to focus.
2) It reduces the frustration of choice for customers.
3) It allows the customer to consume a smaller portion, yet have a richer experience.

But don’t believe me.

Look at what the Louvre does with the Mona Lisa. It allows the customers to blithely walk past amazing works of art, focused solely on getting to the Mona Lisa. Instead of getting frustrated with what to see first, the customers now have a must-do list.

And it’s this direction that makes the customers really happy, because they have the choice, but they know what’s really important. And finally, even if the customer were to simply see the Mona Lisa and leave, they’d feel fulfilled.

On the other hand, if they didn’t have a point of focus, they would always feel like they missed out on something really important.

Of course it’s not hard to see how this concept applies to a professor or trainer, as it does to a restaurant or a consultant or service provider.

So here’s an action plan:

1) List everything you ‘sell’ (whether it’s a product/training or service).
2) Highlight three of the most important (in your opinion).
3) Trim it down to just one (product/element of training/element of service).

And then watch as your customers swarm to your isolated product/service; Your own La Gioconda.

Would a customer buy a product just to brag?
Would they pay more just to say: “I paid more?”
What if you sold something that wasn’t something spiffy like a diamond?
What if you sold a bed, or teacups, or tiles? What if you sold a training course instead?

In any business the price can be quite touchy. It doesn’t seem to make sense that higher prices would sell a product/service better.
So most of us adopt a low price strategy.
But there are some businesses that aren’t necessarily low priced. e.g. Christie’s, New York. People go in expecting to pay a higher. This is because the product is rarely being bought for utility value. It’s being bought for snob appeal.

A $2000 Mercedes or Lexus isn’t a good thing. It’s a bad thing. If you buy a $75,000 car, it’s a good thing, if you’re in the snob or collector’s game. The price is directly proportional to sales.

We’ve tried this very successfully in non-pricey goods (or should I say “utility” goods).
So let’s say you’re selling a bed. And I walk into the bed store. And you have some idea what a bed would cost, but hey you have a budget etc. And I say: Would you like to buy the $1000 bed or the $5000 bed? Now the shock is palpable to you as a customer. What? $5000 for a bed? So how do you react?

Amazingly the question changes. The customer now says: What does the $5000 bed have? And now you have the permission to describe what makes a bed $5000 vs. $1000. The value isn’t snob appeal at all. There’s a marked difference.

So do they buy the $5000 bed?
In some cases, yes. In most cases they go to $3000 or slightly below or slightly above. But how many go to the $1000? Almost no one does. Why would you purposely buy the ‘crappiest’ option?

Of course a lot depends on your sales pitch. If you educate the customer then it works to mutual advantage. If you simply “sell, sell, sell” it won’t work, because the customer senses the sales pitch. And this isn’t restricted to beds.

You can buy a knife.
I can buy a knife.
Actually you can buy a knife set for about $50-$200.
And you can get the knife block with the knife set too.

Maybe they’ll even throw in a honing steel to hone your knife.
And my knife alone costs $200. A single knife. Imagine that.
Am I insane? Why buy a knife for $200, when I can get a whole set for $50?

You may think I’m insane, but I’ve seen chefs with $4000 hand-crafted knives.
It’s rumoured that Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto never enters the kitchen stadium without his custom-made Japanese knives that are priced between $4000 and $5000 each. That makes my $200 knife look like some junk, doesn’t it?

And is it possible that Masahuru Morimoto slices and dices the avocado better than I do? It’s possible, but is it 20 times better? That’s possible too. But eventually it’s also a matter of pride and snob appeal.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling beds, knives, fireplaces or a training course
We have a training course in Article Writing, for instance. I positioned it as the ‘most expensive article-writing’ course in the world. A lot of the clients who do the course are small business owners. They have limited resources, and snob appeal doesn’t quite um, appeal.

They wouldn’t be likely to do a course simply because it’s the most expensive. And yet it gets attention just like the bed did. The question changes from: “Show me what you have to offer” to “Why is your course the most expensive in the world?” And that gives you the permission to respond to the question.

Responding to the question is what’s important
You can’t do a sales pitch. You have to educate me. You have to tell me why I should buy this vs. that. An informed customer is a happier customer. I can tell you that I’m happier with my $200 knife than I would be with my $50 knife set+knife block+honing steel. I am because I know the difference between the two.

I’ve done my research. I’ve been educated and so I feel empowered. Is there a bit of snob appeal in me touting my $200 knife? Of course there is. It’s likely that you don’t own a $200 knife. So now if you’re keen to find out what makes a $200 knife better. Your customer is keen to know the difference.

But do you have to display prices to get the question?
Not necessarily. In some cases you can. In other cases you may show just a range. If the sale is offline, there’s a chunky opportunity to steer a customer to see what you want them to see. In an online situation, a similar course of action is possible.

With the right steps, the client will follow you through the sales sequence as you demonstrate what makes a better bed, or a better fire place, or a better course. But again, let’s not forget. You’re not selling the product/service. You’re describing what’s outstanding, what’s just ok, and what’s totally crappy. This sequence of education is helping the customer decide.

And how do you know if this technique works?
How do you know it won’t bomb and leave you penniless? Try it. Try it face to face with a potential customer. But don’t make the dumb mistake most sales people do. Don’t go trying to sell the product. Instead educate yourself in great detail about your premium products, your mid range product and the cheapest, crappiest product of all.

You don’t need to understand all the brands and all the prices. You just need to know the three brands/products/services you’re going to talk about (at best). Then educate the customer—don’t sell them your product.

Tell them what makes the products/services better and what makes it worse. In effect, you’re playing devil’s advocate with your own products/services. Playing one against the other, while educating the customer.

Apple does this all day long
Look at how Apple sells their products that fly off the shelf. Sure there’s snob appeal. I have an iPad and you don’t have one. But why have a lower priced iPad? Is it to capture the lower end of the market? Sure there’s some of that involved, but think about it.

Which model of the iPad do you want? The lower priced one or the more expensive one? Notice how much trouble Apple goes into to explain almost insignificant features of the product in amazing detail. It’s done for a reason. It educates you and makes you want the product even more.

You may not be Apple. You may never aspire to be Apple, but that doesn’t mean you can’t aspire to understand and replay their powerful marketing tactics and pricing strategies.

Customers say they buy on price. But they rarely buy on price alone. There are so many other factors that come into play.

One of these factors is sheer excellence of the product.
The other is understanding what makes the product superior. And of course, there’s snob appeal. If you’re selling to an audience that understands excellence and snob appeal, don’t start with your cheapest prices.

Start at the top.
It gives your customer the best possible product.

It also gives them bragging rights.

P.S. Is our Article-Writing Course the most expensive in the world? We certainly think so. And you’ll know why when you see the results and the testimonials. And nope, it’s definitely not snob appeal.

“I’m one of those people who has a lot of trouble spending money on training and education, so paying a fee to join a membership was a big step for me.”

What I’ve found, is that people are serious and they contribute. That makes a big difference. The forum is completely worth the price of admission, though of course I wish I’d joined several years ago when it was cheaper. (Ironically, it seemed too expensive to me then, but I’m sure if I’d joined then I’d be further in my
business.)

The biggest piece of value for me so far is the “critiques” section of the forum. After seeing the quality of feedback people were getting, I took the plunge and wrote a sales letter I’ve been meaning to write for almost two years. In the days after I posted I got a lot of helpful feedback that’s helping me make it stronger.
But the most important thing is that I actually got it written. Without a friendly and intelligent audience to evaluate the draft, I might never have sat down to do it.

I’m also enjoying the general discussions. As a solo entrepreneur, most of my days are spent in isolation. And because of where I live, I’m not around other similarly-minded folks. The forum is inspiring; it’s great to be in contact with other people who are working hard on their businesses and facing so many of the same challenges I am.

I just wanted to say that I’m finding the content and community in 5000bc so valuable, and I’m very glad I joined.
Joe Thoron, Eastsound, WA, USA
Judge for yourself http://www.5000bc.com
———————New Products: Introductory Price